Build Stellarium on Windows

How to build Stellarium on Windows

Tested with:

  • Windows 7 32Bit
  • Windows 8 32Bit
  • the source tarball for Stellarium 0.12.0
  • the current Stellarium in-development branch 0.12.1

Requirements:

  • cygwin with bazaar package installed
  • no random crap inside the PATH variable that interferes with CMake, MinGW, Qt

MinGW (20120426):

Run the installer and select:

  • Pre-packaged repository catalogues (this will install gcc 4.6, while selecting Latest catalogue will install gcc 4.7 and the stellarium executable will crash at start)
  • C
  • C++
  • MSYS Basic System

Start MSYS Shell (MINGW_INSTALL\msys\1.0\msys.bat) and run:
mingw-get install libz libiconv gettext

Do not mind errors about already installed packages.

QT 4.8.4:

Install Qt into a path without spaces.
When asked by the installer point it to the previously installed MinGW directory.

CMake 2.8.10:

Install CMake. Do not add it to the PATH variable when asked for at the end of the installation.

Stellarium source code:

Create a folder stellarium. This is where we will put the source code, the build directory and QtCreator.

Start cygwin and go into the created folder. Fetch the latest source:
bzr branch lp:stellarium stellarium-lp

If the above command results in some sort of certificate error try this:
bzr branch -Ossl.ca_certs=/usr/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt lp:stellarium stellarium-lp

QtCreator 2.6.2:

Extract the archive into its own folder inside the stellarium directory next to stellarium-lp.
Inside stellarium folder create a new file qtcreator.bat with following content:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

@echo off

set PATH=%PATH%;C:\MinGW_x86\bin
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\MinGW_x86\include
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\MinGW_x86\lib

set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Qt\4.8.4
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Qt\4.8.4\bin
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Qt\4.8.4\include
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Qt\4.8.4\lib

start qt-creator\bin\qtcreator.exe

Change the paths accordingly.

Build:

Start qtcreator.bat.
Check if a MinGW Build Kit does exist: Tool -> Options -> Bild & Run -> Kits. Create a new one if it does not.

Open the Stellarium project using File -> Open File or Project and select stellarium-lp\CMakeLists.txt.
Go with the default build directory when asked for it (should end with stellarium-lp-build).
Specify the cmake executable if asked for it.
Select the MinGW Generator and Run CMake.

Compile.

Run:

To run from inside QtCreator change the working directory of the Run settings from stellarium-lp-build\src to the source folder stellarium-lp.

Run.

Debug:

The default CMake configuration of the stellarium source from launchpad is already set to Debug.